LDS Genealogical Resources at Brigham Young University -- Part Two

It is not generally understood that the records of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints include many different categories and have a broad reach; well beyond the membership of the Church. Many of the records fall outside of the categories normally attributed to "church records" for genealogical research. Often, the records are dismissed as "user contributed" and per se unreliable. In taking this position, genealogical researchers are overlooking a huge, accessible collection of records that are usually overlooked.

Some of these records have been digitized and are now available on the FamilySearch.org website such as the vast online resource known as the following:

Family Group Records Collection, Archives Section, 1942-1969." Images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 16 May 2017. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, compiler, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

But other collections are available only on microfilm. The Brigham Young University Family History Library (BYU) has a huge collection of LDS records, some of which are unique. The earliest Church records are referred to as the "Nauvoo Records." Compilations of these records have been done by the former Brigham Young University professor, Susan Easton Black in collaboration with her husband Harvey Bischoff Black and others. Here is a list of the publications, all of which are available at the BYU Harold B. Lee Library including the Family History Library. 

Black, Susan Easton. Inscriptions Found on Tombstones and Monuments in Early Latter-Day Saint Burial Grounds: Nauvoo, Illinois (Joseph Smith Homestead, Pioneer Saints Cemetery on Parley Street); Mt. Pisgah, Iowa; West Bank of the Niobrara River, Nebraska; Winter Quarters, Nebraska. Place of publication not identified: publisher not identified.

Black, Susan Easton, Harvey Bischoff Black, Brigham Young University, and Center for Family History and Genealogy. Annotated Record of Baptisms for the Dead, 1840-1845: Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois. Provo, Utah: Center for Family History and Genealogy, Brigham Young University, 2002.

Black, Susan Easton, Harvey Bischoff Black, and Brandon Plewe. Property Transactions in Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois and Surrounding Communities (1839-1859). Wilmington, Del.: World Vital Records, Inc., 2006.

Black, Susan Easton, and George D Durrant. Alphabetical Compilation of Deaths and Burials, Nauvoo, Illinois, 1839-1846, 2015.

———. Latter-Day Saints in Hancock County, Illinois (excluding Nauvoo) and in Lee County, Iowa (1839-1846), 2015.

———. Methodist Church Records Nauvoo, Illinois: Transcription Microfilm #G43984 1311783. S.l.: s.n., 2015.

———. Nauvoo United Lutheran Church Records, Nauvoo, Illinois. S.l.: S.E. Black & G.D. Durrant, 2016.

Many of the early historical records of the central part of the United States are intertwined with Mormon history. As the members of the Church researched their ancestors, documents, letters, manuscripts, and journals were donated to the BYU L. Tom Perry Special Collections Library. 

The BYU Family History Library has an extensive collection of microfilm that includes many of the early Church records, including some that have yet to be digitized. The earliest records were included in a collection called the Temple Index Bureau (TIB) Endowment Index: 1842 - 1969. These records have restricted circulation. However, beginning in 1969 the Church began to create the Computer File Index (CFI). In 1981, it was renamed the International Genealogical Index (IGI) and contains records from 1969 to about 2008. The IGI is particularly useful for researching English parish records. The IGI has now been put online on FamilySearch.org. 

There are a number of Family Group Records Collections. Some of them, as I mentioned above, are available online, but most are still only available on microfilm. The BYU Family History Library has a huge collection of these microfilmed records that include the Family Group Records. Here is a summary of each of the collections at the Library.

• From 1914 to 1960, the Church collected LDS Church Census Records, the microfilm of these valuable records are scattered in the BYU microfilm cabinets. Individual film numbers can be determined by searching in the FamilySearch.org Catalog. 
• From 1924 through 1962 microfilmed copies of the Family Group Records submitted to the Utah Genealogical Society called the Patron's Section were microfilmed in 1950. These films are available at the BYU Family History Library. 
• In 1962, the Patron's Section was re-microfilmed and records from 1950 to 1962 were added.
• The members of the Church were asked to submit their 3rd and 4th Generation Family Group Records and Pedigrees to the Church beginning in 1962 and continuing through 1979. The years in the collection include 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1972 - 1974, 1974- 1975, 1976-1976, and 1978.
• Patron submitted genealogies on paper were contributed between July 1979 and 1996, these are arranged by submission and sheet number. 
• The Pedigree Resource File (also partially on FamilySearch.org) is an actively growing collection of member and public submitted genealogies that began in 1999. 

The L. Tom Perry Special Collections Library (located downstairs from the BYU Family History Library) has some major collections. Stay tuned for additional posts. 

Please see the previous post in this series.

http://rejoiceandbeexceedingglad.blogspot.com/2017/06/lds-genealogical-resources-at-brigham.html

Correcting Relationships in the FamilySearch Family Tree -- Part One

This is a several part series about the process of resolving unsupported family relationships in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. I am attempting to illustrate both the problems and the solutions to the problems that exist in the Family Tree. Because some of these issues with questionable relationships crop up frequently, I am taking the time to explain my research process in detail. I will be using actual situations that are found in the Family Tree. In reading this series, please bear in mind that my intent is not to show how to resolve one problem (the example) but the process used to resolve all such problems. 

There are only two types of basic family relationships in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree; parent/child and couples. All other relationships in the Family Tree are built on these two basic building blocks. Many of the questions I respond to from people using the Family Tree a based in incorrect or inaccurately represented family relationships.

The image shown above has two children in the family with the same name born two years apart. This raises a question about the accuracy of one or both of the entries. Is this simply an instance of a duplicate entry or is there something else going on? One possibility is that the first daughter born died in infancy and then the next child born with the same sex was given the name of the deceased child. In some countries and cultures and during some time periods this was a common occurrence. You have to be careful and research the first child with the name to see if that child died before the second child was born. It this is the case, then the presumption is that there are two different children.

If we look at each of the two children represented above, we see the following:

A comparison of these two entries shows a different problem the children were born in the different states. The first step in correcting the problem is simple: look at where all of the other family members were born. Both of the parents in this family were born in Massachusetts, however, all of the children except the Sarah Sanderson born in 1774 were born in Vermont. In addition, looking a little further, I find that the 1774 Sarah Sanderson was supposedly married in Kentucky and died in Indiana. It should be apparent that this Sarah Sanderson has been added to the wrong family. But how do we know?

RESEARCH NOTE: Checking the consistency of entries in the Family Tree (or any family tree) is essential to making any real progress in identifying the family. The key ingredient in this process is based on looking at the places identified for the events in the lives of the extended family members. Additionally, every attached source should be carefully reviewed to see if the sources support the information in the Family Tree. 

In all these situations there is an easy solution; you can delete the child/parent relationship. Normally, you would have to do some extensive research to resolve the issue. But here, if I go back to the entry for the 1774 Sarah Sanderson, I find she has two sets of parents in the Family Tree.

The top set of parents are from North Carolina. The second set are from Vermont. This particular family line has been documented back to Indiana and Kentucky (which was originally a part of Virginia). The only source showing that Sarah Sanderson came from Vermont is a record extracted from the International Genealogy Index (IGI).

RESEARCH NOTE: IGI entries have been automatically assigned by the program. Any IGI attributed entry should be carefully examined to see if the information is consistent with existing records and sources. If the IGI sources are found to be invalid, they should be detached. 

However the birth date does not match and the Vermont location is inconsistent with other records showing the family in Kentucky. The first set of parents, John Sanderson and Sarah Foscue, are shown to be from North Carolina. There are definitely some problems with this entire family.

The long list of children has individuals born in South Carolina with one child in Kentucky and one child with no birthplace information. There is not one source showing where or when Sarah Sanderson was born. There is further no information explaining how the parents, who were born in North Carolina, had children born in South Carolina. There is further no information as to how the family got to Kentucky. John Sanderson, shown in the screenshot above, is shown to have duplicate wives.

In addition, the IGI sources have added several children to the North Carolina John Sanderson that are from Vermont. No wonder that people can become confused with who is and who is not a family member.  See the RESEARCH NOTE above regarding the IGI entries.

At this point we have several options. It would seem expedient to remove the relationship between Sarah Sanderson and the Vermont Sandersons. On the other hand, my examination of all of the records does not necessarily support a conclusion that she was a member of the North Carolina parents' family either. It may well be that all of the children born in South Carolina are not correct. The status of the sources only shows a Sarah Sanderson in Kentucky, so right now here origin is pure speculation. If I make any changes involving removing relationships, I will be acting on supposition rather than sources.

My tentative conclusion is that we do not have any valid supporting information that identifies Sarah Sanderson's parents. Additionally, the relationship of Sarah Sanderson and the person who married Garrard Morgan is also in doubt.

Stay tuned for more analysis.

Is there a future for the FamilySearch.org Family Tree?

My wife, my daughter and I spent nearly three hours yesterday listening to Ron Tanner of FamilySearch talk about the future of the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. To answer the obvious question, yes, we are related. Ron is my second cousin, one generation removed (his father is my second cousin). For years now, Ron has been talking about the Family Tree and we have both been looking at some of the same set of ancestors. So it is interesting to hear what he has to say (at length) about how some of the seemingly intractable problems with our shared genealogy might be resolved. By the way, he was presenting at the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group meeting in Provo, Utah. As a member of the UVTAGG you can get a recorded, video copy of the entire presentation and the lengthy question and answer period that followed.

One interesting thing about his presentation was that very little of it was new news. He has essentially been saying the same things in different ways for years. There were, of course, some refinements in the ideas he has expressed previously due to advances in technology. One recent change was clarified. FamilySearch has imposed some "Person Limits." These include the following limits on what can be added to the Family Tree:

• Spouses 200
• Parents 100
• Children 400
• Memories 1,000
• Sources 200
• Discussions 50
• Notes 50

Most contributors will likely never encounter these limits. The only one that is even very possible to exceed is the limit on the number of Memories. I have already exceeded this with some of my ancestors.

Some statistics that he mentioned were also interesting. He said that 16 million new sources are being added to the Family Tree each month and that there are presently over 766 million sources already in the Family Tree. The flood of sources going into the Family Tree are going to have a profound effect on the way genealogy is done in the immediate future. The Family Tree is quickly becoming one of the most valuable free resources for finding information about your own ancestors. Of course, for this to happen, you have to look at the sources and Memories that are being added.

Some of the ideas he explored for future developments included ways to make the information in the Family Tree shareable between immediate family members by creating a Private Space that includes selected family members. I assumed from what he said that the Family Space would make an appearance in the next few months or years.

Other comments were directed at increasing the need for documentation for changes and giving more immediate notice to others about any changes being made. FamilySearch is well aware of the problems created by people adding undocumented changes and is moving towards tightening the requirements for adding information as well as making it easier to do something about arbitrary changes.

Many of the changes he talked about were specifically aimed at the process of reserving and submitting ordinances to the Temples. I suspect that these changes will take place very slowly over time. There is already a time limit of two years on reserved names and these time limits may also be augmented by limits on the number of names that can be reserved at a time by any one individual.

All in all, Ron's presentation was entertaining, as usual, and a very good review of the present and near future operation of the Family Tree. By the way, I found that what I have written recently is very consistent with what he had to say.

A Look at the FamilySearch Family Tree Private Spaces

It has been a while since I have written about the FamilySearch.org Family Tree Private Space. Users of the Family Tree are justly concerned about their "privacy." But it also important to know that dead people do not have privacy rights that can be violated by anything in the Family Tree. There is a confidential setting for a very few dead people usually due to a confidential data issue. Each living person in the Family Tree has a private space. Basic information about Private Spaces comes from a Help Center article entitled, "Understanding Private Spaces."

https://familysearch.org/ask/salesforce/viewArticle?urlname=Understanding-Private-Spaces&lang=en#confidential

You can click on the image or the link and read the entire article. One of the least understood issues concerning a Private Space is the fact that entering a living person or a dead person without a death date, creates a possible duplicate within the system. Potentially, assuming that numerous family members enter the same living person when a person dies there could be multiple duplicate copies. Theoretically, there could be a number of merges required to eliminate the duplicates. In reality, the number of duplicates is usually not significant.

For example, let's suppose that a person has a large family including grandchildren and great-grandchildren if any of those descendants; children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren etc., enter the person, assuming the person has his or her own name in the Family Tree, then each additional entry creates a duplicate. When the person dies, each of those duplicates will have to be merged into a final, single copy of the deceased person. Since this also applies to any person for whom there is no death information, care should be taken to mark people correctly as deceased.

It is also not a good idea to guess about whether a person is living or dead. The simplest solution for this issue is to apply the 110-year rule. Assume all people born within the last 110 years to be alive unless you have specific death information.

Family Search has talked about modifying the Personal Space to create family spaces, where members of the same family could share information, but the concept is not yet beginning to be codified.

Family Group Records and the Family Tree

Family Group Records Collection, Archives Section, 1942-1969

Back in about 1942, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began the process of using "Family Group Records" (aka Family Group Sheets) to enable members to submit names for Temple ordinances. 5,337,178 of these paper forms have been digitized by FamilySearch and are in the Family Group Records Collection, Archives Section, 1942-1969 on FamilySearch.org. Interestingly, paper copies of these Family Group Records are still floating around.

Many members of the Church participated in the four and five generation submission programs beginning back in the 1960s. Much of that information was compiled and included in the Ancestral File which has also been digitized and included on FamilySearch.org Genealogies section.

Some people are still compiling their genealogy on paper. Many people also have their "genealogy" on floppy disks. From my own experience in working with people who have these old compilations, especially those with files in the old Personal Ancestral File program, I have found that nearly all of this information is duplicated in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. Even if the person with the old paper Family Group Records claims to have personally done all the research, there is still a very good chance that some of the information has already been incorporated into the Family Tree. I also find that few of these people who have information on paper or floppy disks have compared that information with what is already in the Family Tree.

The issue here is duplication of effort. If you start doing research today and do not carefully review what is already online, it is very likely that you will be duplicating what has already been entered online in some family tree or another. This is not a comment directed at the accuracy of the information. That is another issue. But anytime you start doing research today, to avoid duplication, you need to see if your genealogy is already online.

Response to JSTOR Daily's Brigham Young and the Defense of Mormon Polygamy

Consistent with much of what is written about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, contributor Professor Peter Feuerherd made several historical as well as factual errors in his article for the JSTOR Daily on June 1, 2017. Feuerherd is a professor of journalism at St. John's University in New York and a correspondent for the National Catholic Register.

As a former trial attorney, genealogist and historian, I am abundantly aware of the need to cite your sources and accurately reflect the content of those sources. Statements made without any source citations or made without checking the facts alleged reflect very negatively on the contributor and on the JSTOR Daily.

Professor Feuerherd's article is entitled, "Brigham Young and the Defense of Mormon Polygamy." The article is not overtly anti-Mormon but anytime an article contains factual errors about the Church or its history, the article can not be considered positive.

I may not have identified all of the misstatements and errors in the article but here are the things that I identified with links to sources that provide more correct information. Where appropriate, my links will be to the LDS.org website and the section entitled, "Gospel Topics." These statements reflect the official position of the Church. In referring to Professor Feuerherd's article, I will let the reader review the article. I will only quote brief passages to illustrate the error or incorrect statements.

Speaking of Brigham Young, Professor Feuerherd states that Brigham Young led his people, "...to the "New Jerusalem" established in Salt Lake City."

Quoting the Gospel Topic Zion,
The New Jerusalem, which will be built in Jackson County, Missouri (see D&C 45:66-67; 57:1-3; Articles of Faith 1:10).

Salt Lake City, has never been considered by the Church or its members to be the "New Jerusalem," although Utah and the LDS communities in Utah have been popularly known as "Zion" particularly when members were congregating in the West during the 1800s and early 1900s. Here is a quote from the Gospel Topic Zion:

In the early days of this dispensation, Church leaders counseled members to build up Zion by emigrating to a central location. Today our leaders counsel us to build up Zion wherever we live. Members of the Church are asked to remain in their native lands and help establish the Church there. Many temples are being built so Latter-day Saints throughout the world can receive temple blessings.

Again speaking of Brigham Young, the article states that he was, "...elected to his position as president after the murder of Joseph Smith, the founder."

The Prophet leaders of the Church are not elected in the sense usually applied to that word. There are several dozen articles on the LDS.org website concerning the process called "succession in the presidency." I suggest a simple search on the terms on the LDS.org website. Here is one article for an example:

Flake, Brent L. Top and Lawrence R. “‘The Kingdom of God Will Roll On’: Succession in the Presidency - Ensign Aug. 1996 - Ensign.” Accessed June 8, 2017. https://www.lds.org/ensign/1996/08/the-kingdom-of-god-will-roll-on-succession-in-the-presidency?lang=eng.

From Professor Feuerherd referring to the Salt Lake Valley where the members of the Church first settled: "from upstate New York, to Illinois, to Missouri, only to find security under Young’s leadership in the wide-open territory of Utah, first under Mexican control and then under the authority of the United States."

All of my ancestral lines go back to pioneers and some of these pioneers practiced plural marriage. I have studied the history of the Church all my life. The above statement is factually inaccurate. The main body of the Church members, called "Saints," did start in upstate New York, but they first moved to Ohio, then to Missouri and then to Illinois where they gathered until they were driven from there into the West, first to the Salt Lake Valley and then into communities all over the West. 

The first pioneers entered the Valley of the Great Salt Lake in July of 1847. At that time, the area was technically a part of Mexico however it could not be considered to be under Mexico's control. However,  pursuant to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the area became part of the United States. Had the professor looked in Wikipedia, he would have found the following:

The creation of the Utah Territory was partially the result of the petition sent by the Mormon pioneers who had settled in the valley of the Great Salt Lake starting in 1847. The Mormons, under the leadership of Brigham Young, had petitioned Congress for entry into the Union as the State of Deseret, with its capital as Salt Lake City and with proposed borders that encompassed the entire Great Basin and the watershed of the Colorado River, including all or part of nine current U.S. states. The Mormon settlers had drafted a state constitution in 1849 and Deseret had become the de facto government in the Great Basin by the time of the creation of the Utah Territory.

Short summary phrases such as the ones used in the JSTOR article are seldom completely accurate. 

Back to the JSTOR article again speaking of Brigham Young; "...was a polygamist, taking on dozens of wives..."

The author has fallen into the trap created by anti-Mormon writings on the subject. A good explanation of the practice of plural marriage can be found in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism online from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. See the article on Plural Marriage. Although there is some controversy about Brigham Young's wives, mostly among the Church's detractors, you can easily see the list in Wikipedia: List of Brigham Young's wives. The author here cites a journal article to support his understanding and the statements made. See Cannon, Charles A. "The Awesome Power of Sex: The Polemical Campaign against Mormon Polygamy." Pacific Historical Review 43, no. 1 (1974): 61-82. doi:10.2307/3637591.

Further on, the author cites another journal article. See Hardy, B. Carmon, and Dan Erickson. ""Regeneration; Now and Evermore!": Mormon Polygamy and the Physical Rehabilitation of Humankind." Journal of the History of Sexuality 10, no. 1 (2001): 40-61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3704788.

As is common, the author fails to cite even one article from any LDS source on the subjects raised. The two journal articles seem to be the entire source of the author's article. 

Another quote from the article: "Twenty years after his [Brigham Young's] death, Utah was admitted into the Union, and in exchange, the Mormon leadership officially abandoned polygamy as an official practice."

Utah was admitted as a state into the Union on January 4, 1896. The Church President, Wilford Woodruff, issued the Manifesto now known as Official Declaration 1, which was accepted by the Church as authoritative and binding on October 6, 1890. This led to the end of the practice of plural marriage in the Church. Plural marriage in the Church officially ended six years before Utah was admitted as a state. In addition, Brigham Young died on August 29, 1877. My calculator says that the Manifesto was issued 13 years after Brigham Young's death and Utah was admitted as a state about 19 years after his death. I would have to assume that the conclusion concerning the connection of the two events would need to be supported by some citation to historical documents. Historians expect genealogists to be historically accurate, how about historians abide by the same standard?

If I made the same kinds of inaccurate generalized statements unsupported by cited sources, I would expect someone else to critique my work, just as I have here. 

The Real Revolution in LDS Genealogy -- Part Three

At the core of the Revolution in LDS Genealogy is the enigmatic FamilySearch.org Family Tree. I use the term "enigmatic" because for many of the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the program is a mystery and for others more of a frustration. A program such as the Family Tree would not have been possible just a few short years ago. In fact, some of the things that the engineers at FamilySearch are trying to do with the Family Tree are currently either right at the edge of what is technologically possible or a little beyond.

The Family Tree contains the records of around 1.4 billion individuals. When I started using computers to record my genealogy, we had "floppy disks" and even storing a few hundred individuals was a slow and laborious process. Coming from that background and to produce a program such as the Family Tree, hundreds of different inventions and technologies had to be developed. These included high capacity storage devices, ultra-fast computers, the entire internet and many additional less obvious developments. In fact, the entire concept of a unified, worldwide, and participative Family Tree would have been science fiction just a few short years ago. It is no wonder that members of the Church have difficulty conceptualizing and understanding the Family Tree.

The Family Tree is cloud-based. The entire program is universally accessible to anyone with an internet connection with a device that the view web pages. If I am looking at one individual in the Family Tree, anyone who cares to do so can also see the same individual at the same time. Changes to the Family Tree are recorded by the program in "real time." This means that if I were to make a change to any entry, anyone viewing the program would see my change within, at most, a second or two of the time I made the change. Theoretically, there should be no lag time, but differences in the speed of the various devices using the internet can cause a small delay. This ability to view changes simultaneously allows for interactive collaboration. Although this feature is an integral part of the Family Tree, few users take advantage of this interactive feature. As time passes and more people become accustomed to working with interactive programs, working on portions of the Family Tree as research groups may begin to develop.

As with any revolutionary activity, there are always those who are those who are more traditional, orthodox and even counterrevolutionary. People who are steeped in technology and accustomed to using computers as a normal extension of their everyday activities, generally have fewer issues with the Family Tree. People who are resistant to technology are often baffled by the whole concept of a unified family tree program.

Why is the Family Tree revolutionary? A revolution is the forcible overthrow of a social order in favor of a new system. Genealogy in the Church over the last 150 years or so has created its own social order. As I have written before, it is highly compartmentalized and focuses on individual activity. Traditional genealogists were only marginally cooperative and collaborative. The entire structure of "family history" or genealogy is infused with the concept of ownership. The concept of "ownership" in so ingrained that some practitioners deny access to their records out of fear of losing control or having their conclusions questioned. The Family Tree is the antithesis of this ownership culture.

Before the advent of smartphones connected to a worldwide internet, the idea that I could carry all of my genealogical research with me in my pocket was unthinkable. One of the most obvious aspects of the transition from traditional genealogical methodology to Family Tree based research is the fact that many traditional researchers are still seen to be dragging huge briefcases and in some instances entire suitcases full of their "research" to the BYU Family History Library. In fact, if you want to see this phenomenon first hand, all you need to do is show up at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah a few minutes before the scheduled opening time and look at the people dragging their piles of paper waiting to get into the library. People are still sitting in front of a computer and copying down information from the screen by hand onto paper. At some point, in the not too distant future, this laborious activity will finally disappear. The main reason for this change is the Family Tree. Users will finally realize that they can keep all their research online and paper is superfluous.

Another example of the interface between the traditionalists and the revolution is the frequent request made by patrons at the Brigham Young University Library about "putting their file into the Family Tree." Most of these patrons are unaware that "their file" is very likely already in the Family Tree and that further, they have probably spent a major portion of their genealogical research time simply redoing or duplicating what had already been done by someone else.

Stay tuned for the next installment.

Here are links to the first installments.

http://rejoiceandbeexceedingglad.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-real-revolution-in-lds-genealogy_5.html
http://rejoiceandbeexceedingglad.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-real-revolution-in-lds-genealogy.html